Neil Shenvi - Apologetics

How I became a Christian

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on
everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a
Pharisee and the
other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself:
'God, I thank you
that I am not like other men-- robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like
this tax
collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to
heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before
God. For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will
be exalted.
-Luke 18:9-14

First, some background: I grew up in the suburbs of Delaware. I went to
high school. I
went to college. I loved philosophy, loved arguing philosophy, and most of
all, loved being
right. I would have called myself Christian, if anyone had asked, but I
thought
that all religions were essentially the same. After all, they all taught
very similar
moral precepts, selflessness, and generosity. I would have only called
myself a Christian
because I found Jesus' moral teachings to be more familiar than those of
other religions. I
had read the Bible when I was in fifth grade, and although I hadn't read it
since I went
to college, I could recall that while it was good, it was wrong in some
places. But I led
a fairly moral life, and certainly no one would have questioned my general
goodness. In
fact, I built my life on doing the right thing, on being a virtuous, moral
person.
Throughout this time, I believed in God, I said grace before meals,
and I prayed
every night.
My prayers went roughly as follows:
"Dear God,
Thank you for all that you have given me. I have many talents, and I thank
you that I am
thankful for them and that I realize what a blessing they are. I am
generally a good
person, and even though I'm not perfect, I thank you that you recognize my
goodness and
love me. Lord, I hope that you'll forgive me for my sins, whatever they may
be.
And I hope that tomorrow I'll try to be an even better person. Amen."

I had also read Luke 18:9, and knew that pride was bad. So occasionally, I
would
add something like "God, I know I am not as good as I could be. I could
be much better. I know I look down on other people because I am better than
them, but
I shouldn't." But my heart was essentialy saying: "God, I know this is how
I'm supposed
to pray, with humility and all that, but between you and me, we both know
that I'm
basically a good person. And what tops it all off is that I'm so humble."
Occasionally,
I would have to acknowledge what I actually felt in my heart - that
I had an attitude uncannily similar to that of the Pharisee. And then I
would stifle my
pride yet again and pray for humility. Unfortunately, as C.S. Lewis pointed
out, that
strategy is doomed to fail; I ended up being proud of my attempts at
humility. But that
was the best I could do, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't convinced that
anyone could
do better.

My senior year of college, I met Christina and fell in love with
her. I
found her faith at once interesting and inconvenient, but I vowed that I
would compromise
and agreed to meet her halfway. I took my beliefs very seriously, and it
seemed unfair
and close-minded that she should cling to her views so stubbornly and to
expect, although
expect is not the right word, that I should relinquish mine. When we moved
out to
California together, I was convinved that everything would work out as long
as we
compromised on the whole Jesus thing. To show my willingness to compromise,
I decided
to go to church with her. And that was my fatal mistake.

At our church in Berkeley, I heard the Gospel for the first time: Jesus
saves. I must
have heard that phrase or some variation of it hundreds of times before, but
this time,
for whatever reason, I listened. In retrospect, I think that one defense
against
Christianity to which I always appealed was that Christianity could not
possibly
be maintained by thoughtful, intelligent people, at least not people so
thoughtful and
intelligent as myself. Surely, Christianity was for well-meaning and
sometimes
not-so-well-meaning people with substandard educations and a streak of
intellectual fear
bordering on dishonesty. But at First Pres., my escape was closed off. Our
pastor had a
PhD from Oxford. My quantum physics professor sang in the choir. Here were
people
indisputably my intellectual superiors who believed that Jesus was Lord, and had died for their
sins. And all at
once, I was
forced to actually consider the message of Christianity on its own merits.
I didn't
like it.

I can recall the night when the claims of Christianity finally sank in.
For
the first
time, I considered what the consequences would be if Christianity were true.
Not just
true in a relativistic "true-for-me" sense, but actually true -
historically,
objectively true. What if God were the God of the Bible?
What if Jesus
was who he said he was? I knew that the word "gospel" was Greek for "good
news", but I
remember weeping and telling Christina that this was the most horrible news I had ever
heard. What
about all the people who had never heard of Jesus? What about people who
had died before
Jesus was born? What about good, devout followers of other religions? But
for once, I
didn't use these objections as reasons to dismiss all consideration of the subject immediately.
I finally
stopped
to consider whether Christianity was true in spite of all my questions. And
I think
I prayed something like: "God, if this is true, tell me, and I will
believe."
Of course, I didn't obtain answers for my questions immediately. And I
still grapple
with many of those same questions. But I think that was the point when I
decided to
put my trust in God and follow where He led. And over many subsequent
months, He led me
to Jesus.

What is the message of the gospel to which I had such a negative reaction?
It was the same message that was preached to the people of Jerusalem and Judea two thousand
years ago: we are all saved by unmerited, undeserved grace. No one lives up to what
God wants of
him: not the most sinful, evil person in the world, and not the most moral,
virtuous
person in the world.

I realize now what had been completely controlling my life up until the
point I became a
Christian: the desire for approval. All
my life, I had tried desperately to be better than other people: smarter,
more athletic,
more musical. Sometimes I would meet someone smarter than me, but often I
was
more athletic. Many people were more athletic, but then I was more musical.
And when
I did meet someone who outperformed me in all of my categories, I was
devastated.
Worst of all, morality just became one more category, the category that
trumped them all.
My belief in God, my adherence to moral principles, was my last resort when
all else failed.
No matter how smart, athletic, or musical the competition, I always had
this: that I was
a good person, that I was a moral person. And the last balm that would
soothe my wounded
pride was really the most poisonous of all, pride in my righteousness and
pride in my
humility.

But the Gospel shatters all our self-justification. Jesus says to us: none
of you can be
his own savior. You are all sinners: the tax collectors, the prostitutes,
the
Pharisees, the pastors, the bishops, the kings, the businessmen. You're all
suffering,
you're all dying inside. There's only one difference: the tax collectors
and the
prostitutes know it; they know they can't save themselves. But you,
Pharisee, and
you, Neil: you still think you can.

That's why the Gospel was fire and water to me. It saw through all of my
attempts at
self-justification, which is what all of the competition and virtue was. It
saw through
my attempts to pass myself off as a success. Who of us, when we are being
most honest
with ourselves can truly say that he doesn't need any help, that he's got it
all together?
If you think that you do, let me just suggest to you that you might be as
terrified as
I was to admit to the opposite. And most of the time, we can convince
ourselves that
we're basically doing ok. But we've all had glimpses. God always allows us
to go
through times when suddenly everything falls apart and we realize how
desperately in
need we are.

But the Gospel also offers the hope that is the only real hope: God loves even the worst of
us. In all my
self-justification, in all
of my pride and contempt, what I was seeking was a verdict: a verdict that
my life
had meaning. I had tried to earn that meaning through academic success,
through
athletics, through all kinds acheivement, but it was never enough. And
worse, the gospel
told me that I was completely lost and morally bankrupt. But when everything else is shaken, only the unshakeable remains.
Throughout
the Bible, Jesus' message is that God loves us not because we are good, but
because He
is good. Jesus came to save not the righteous, but sinners. He gives us
the verdict
that we are all longing to hear: that we are loved, that our lives are worth something, worth
so much, in fact, that God gave up the treasure of his heart to save us. What we couldn't
earn despite our best efforts, God freely gives.

Knowing Jesus has made a tremendous difference in my life. I still
struggle
with pride, but now I can look to Jesus who "being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the
very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." I still struggle with
feeling superior to others, but now I can say, along with St. Paul, "Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst." At the same time that I am
humbled by the knowledge that it cost Jesus his life to save me, I am reassured by
the knowledge that he did it willingly, because of the great love he has for
all of us. Now I can obey God out of love and gratitude, not out of fear
of punishment or desire for reward. Paul, who himself was a Pharisee and whose
moral zeal and self-righteousness surpassed even my own, put it this way:
"If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on
the eigth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard
to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persucting the church; as for leagalistic righteousness,
faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."

I hope that the rest of my life will be spent learning to depend entirely on
God's grace. As Paul
concludes, I conclude, "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing
greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is
through faith in Christ -- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

If anyone reading this essay has questions about it or about
Christianity in general, feel free to e-mail me at Neil -AT-
Shenvi.org. I also highly recommend the book The
Reason for God by Tim Keller.
It is phenomenal. Free sermons treating many of the topics covered by this book can be found here.